There was some space between the ending of 14x11 and the beginning of 14x12, so this is in an attempt to fill it in after the episodes pretty much broke my heart. Happy 300th episode!
I don't own Supernatural or the Avengers (hey, if the show can pretty much blatantly reference the latest movie twice, so can I ;)
The night they left Donna's cabin, Baby hitched up pulling Dean's soon to be coffin behind her, proved to be one of Sam's longest. And he'd lived through more than a lifetime's worth of long nights. So it only figured that when they finally stopped for the rest of the night, he was up before Dean.
Sam wasn't sure if he had ever actually drifted off, he more faded in and out until the exhaustion, both physical and emotional, finally got the better of him. Still, he kept one ear trained on the door and for any other noises. Though he doubted Dean would up and leave without Sam knowing after their discussion about Dean almost doing that just hours ago, he had considered snaking the Impala's keys just to be safe.
But he had left them where they were, partially as a showing of faith and trust when Dean set them down in the open, and partially because he couldn't fathom Dean just leaving without saying goodbye even though it had almost just happened. It had been too much to wrap his head around.
What ended up waking him wasn't the sound of the door closing and knowing that Dean was gone, it was knowing he was still there.
After years of hunting, his ears had been tuned to the slightest change in sound, and while it took him a second to register what had changed, when it did, he almost wished for earplugs.
Dean was still in the next bed over, but his breathing was harsh and erratic. Sam didn't need any other information to tell that his brother was in the throws of a nightmare, and seemingly a bad one at that. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and just from the light pooling in from the window, he could see the quick rise and fall of Dean's back, as he was flipped over on his stomach, which did nothing to help his breathing.
While it was risky, if the nightmare got bad enough, Sam would wake Dean up. Of course, he'd promptly step back with his hands raised to avoid the knife or gun that was about to be pulled. Sometimes they'd say a few words in a way of 'talking it out', but more often than not, Dean covered with some form of a stalker joke and they both went back to bed, though neither of them fell back asleep.
Nightmares came with the gig, it was just a fact, and something that they had more or less adjusted to over the years and dealt with.
But this…with Michael trying to bust out of Dean's head, possibly even when he was asleep, how could Sam know that waking Dean up wouldn't give Michael the opening he needed to take control again? That Dean's defenses and consciousness keeping Michael back wouldn't falter if he was jerked out of a nightmare? Sam couldn't possibly know for sure.
He got halfway through his thought process before Dean's breath started hitching and he began calling out, softly at first, but then more desperate.
"Sam? Sammy? Sam!"
It made Sam's own heart still in his chest and his whole body tense. It sounded just like the echoed cries in Dean's own head that he and Cas had heard only days earlier. If he had any guesses as to what those cries were for before, his questions were answered now. It didn't take much to make the jump between Dean being stuck in hell to dreaming about being locked in his own personal prison and calling out for the only person that could possibly help him.
He was the only person that could talk Dean out of this self-sacrificial idea, and the only one who stood a chance to getting him back if he actually went through with it.
But that didn't mean that he could end Dean's unconscious mental suffering, not with the fear of what it could inadvertently bring. With each repetition of his own name, Sam flinched and drew himself up from the bed.
More than anything, he wanted a way to fix this. To take away his brother's torment in the way Dean had so often done for him. To find something in a book somewhere to stop this whole mess. To stop Michael. To stop Dean's plan. To find another way to still save the world.
After a minute or so, the desperate cries of his own name finally ceased, but Dean's breathing didn't even out.
Sam shook his head and pushed himself off the mattress to head into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly open with the light striking the dark room through the crack. Maybe that would be enough to wake Dean up naturally on his own without letting Michael out.
Dean was doing a good job at hiding it, but even on the drive to the motel, Sam had gotten an idea of just how much the door was giving. If it was this bad only days after Michael had been locked up, chances were that it could nosedive during any one of the coming days. It had started as a slight facial tick, just once or twice, where the corner of his mouth would go up or down and his eyes would squint, almost in a hidden wince.
Sam had turned his head towards the window, allowing Dean the space to actually wince if he had to, but also knowing that his older brother never would in the same space as Sam. Two hours later, it turned into a few long, harsh blinks that Sam knew weren't just from the exhaustion and the driving.
He had almost offered to drive when they left Donna's, but the words died on his lips. Sam had only been a witness as Dean had hooked the box up to his beloved Baby, and the sheer defeat and heartbreak barely disguised in his eyes made Sam back off. For all Dean knew, he was on his final long term trip with the Impala, and she was carting behind her the means to his end. Sam couldn't take that away. Not until he found a way to fix it.
After Dean's complexion seemed to pale in the passing lights, Sam suggested they stop for the night, since he was beat and they had a long drive ahead. Dean not refusing was just another warning light on a panel full of blinking red dots.
The silence, tension, and impending inevitability of Dean's plan had settled in the second they moved into the motel room, and had stayed even after the lights went out.
From his place in the bathroom, Sam couldn't hear Dean, and he took a few moments to quietly compose himself. He splashed some water on his face, not like he was ever getting back to sleep anyways, and toweled off. The second he heard a sharp gasp from the other room, the towel was forgotten by the sink, and Sam opened the door.
Dean was sitting up in bed, facing away from him, looking at one of his hands. They both played it normal, for a moment, typical bad dream, Dean said he was okay, but Sam refused. If he could just start piecing together Dean's resolve, maybe there would be enough to put a dam up against this plan he had going. Everything had to start somewhere.
As soon as he mentioned said plan though, Dean was up and off the bed, confirming Sam's suspicions as to the nightmare, and adding a whole other level of worry onto the situation.
There would be another way, there always was, they just had to find it, and Sam had to make sure Dean was still around when they did.
Dean closed the door to the bathroom, effectively severing the conversation and the connection, but Dean's screams still floated through the air, mental ghosts that no salt would be able to make go away.
Sam let out a shaky breath, and on a whim checked the window outside just to be sure that the Impala and their precious cargo were still intact. Satisfied that they were, he turned back to the beds, and only paused when he noticed dents in the wallpaper by Dean's bed.
Strange that the dents were on the side he had been sleeping towards…
Sam cast a cursory glance towards the bathroom, which was still shut. He then turned on the small lamp in the room and almost immediately wished he hadn't done so.
He'd been in enough tough spots to recognize desperate signs of a struggle marked with fingernail gashes. And those were exactly what he saw by Dean's bed. They were rough and deep and marred the wallpaper with blood.
Dean had been in the box at the bottom of the ocean, clawing to get himself out, screaming for Sam. Sam would never know the specifics, he couldn't ask something like that. In a strange way, Sam wondered if it would be enough to snap Dean out of what he was going to do, but he doubted it.
He shut off the lamp before Dean got out and noticed his actions had been discovered. Dean knew Sam knew he was struggling, there was no reason to put anything more into the equation.
Sam got back into his bed, but after a minute of looking at the darkness, he realized that he was never going to be able to calm down enough to sleep, and that he may as well do something somewhat productive. He pulled out his laptop from where he had left it and fired it up.
There were no new emails from Cas or mom about anything to be done to help Dean, not that he had really expected any. His fingers hovered over the keys, ready to type in a search word that would turn up a magic site to fix all their problems. But his hands stilled. Instead, he typed in a well known website and set to scrolling.
Dean appeared only a few minutes later, hands clean of where there must have been blood, but still looking somewhat shaky.
"Really, research? I told you, Sam," Dean started with a slow shake of his head. His voice wasn't quite steady, marred with exhaustion and just a bit scratchy from the screams. Both of them heard it and knew, and that was all.
"Unless you call searching for something to watch research." Sam flipped around the laptop, showing him the Netflix screen he had been on. "It's a new year, was seeing what new titles were up in case we missed anything."
Dean didn't ask for more specifics. The reasoning behind the distraction device simply went unsaid and completely understood. Still, Dean was paused in the bathroom doorway.
"You interested?" Sam asked. It was an open invitation from both ends of the spectrum. Dean could say no and pretend like everything was alright and 'go back to sleep' while Sam dug out his headphones. Or he could say screw it and spend the few hours before the sun was up taking his mind off of everything.
Much to Sam's relief, Dean shrugged, and muttered a 'scooch' as he came to sit on the other side of Sam's bed.
"If you choose a chick flick, I swear…"
"But you said you love them," Sam smirked.
They were both trying too hard, it was obvious, and both of them knew it, but neither remarked on it. It was playing in both their minds that just maybe they didn't have many of these moments left. The knowing shorthand, the easy understanding that went from growing up in each other's pockets and watching each other die and literally dealing with the end of the world.
"The new Avengers got put up," Sam suggested as his fingers stopped scrolling for a minute. Sci-fi and superheroes were usually a safe bet in times like this, not the horror they dealt with every day but still enjoyable and relevant.
"We've missed the last, like, four movies, but sure," Dean agreed. He didn't seem committed, but Sam would stick with the agreement as the best he would get. And if this was one of the last nights they got to spend together, he'd definitely it rather be spent with a movie than pretending to be sleeping to avoid talking and getting nowhere.
Sam started it up and set the laptop in the space between them. If it were a normal movie night, Dean would gripe about wanting licorice, and a debate would ensue about what constituted a good movie candy. They'd remark on whatever they were watching, good or bad, and enjoy each other's company.
Maybe they were still doing the last one, just in a subdued and depressed manner. Still, it was better than not being able to do it at all.
Morning eventually rolled around with the end of the movie. They got packed up, and Sam spent a minute or so longer than normal putting their duffels into the Impala. When he got back to do a final sweep of the room, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the red had been removed from the scratches and the bed had been shifted to cover them just a bit more.
Again, no remarks were made on the subject. They left behind the screams in the room, but carried the rest within themselves.
The Impala rumbled down the nearest highway, her engine turning just a bit harder to keep up with the additional weight behind her. Sam couldn't see it from where he was, but he knew Dean's rearview mirror was full of it. The ominous, dark, metal box being dragged behind them that would pull him down into his nightmares.
The road was open, but Dean's eyes kept flitting back up to check what mirror, as if he hoped the box would fall off and roll down a ravine, never to be seen again.
Maybe eventually Sam would be able to convince him that it would be a better course of action. That they would find another way before his hail mary was necessary.
But he didn't say any of it, not yet. He thought it though. Every argument, every rebuke on Dean's part, every way it could go. The Impala ate up miles beneath her tires, inching her way towards the Pacific.
Sam would stop this before they got there. He had to.
He doubted the Avengers would stop given the predicament they were in. They'd fight tooth and nail to get their family back.
He almost opened his mouth to make that argument. Dean appreciated superheroes, and considering he was a real-life one, maybe he'd take the advice somewhat seriously.
But Dean turned on the radio before Sam got the chance to attempt to make a coherent argument out of a movie for their situation. Dean settled on a soft rock station, which carried through the silence between them, and drummed his fingers ever so lightly on the steering wheel as he listened. To maybe the last time he'd head the song. While he drove maybe the last journey he'd ever make.
No, Sam would stop it. He'd save his brother from this waking nightmare. He just had to convince him that other options were worth spending the time to look for.